COMMENTARY: Dynamite charge’ always shakes lawyers

Lane Lambert

Sunday

Jan 29, 2012 at 12:01 AMJan 29, 2012 at 7:54 PM

When a Norfolk County Superior Court jury told Judge Kenneth Fishman this week that they were deadlocked on a verdict in a manslaughter trial, Fishman took a rare action – he invoked the “Rodriquez charge.”

When a Norfolk County Superior Court jury told Judge Kenneth Fishman this past week that they were deadlocked on a verdict in a manslaughter trial, Fishman took a rare action – he invoked the “Rodriguez charge.”

Also known as the “dynamite charge,” the instruction is named for a 1973 state Supreme Judicial Court decision. It’s given to jurors to prod them to reach a unanimous vote, either for conviction or acquittal. Judges use it as a last resort, and most defense attorneys don’t like it.

Kevin Reddington is one of them. He’s seen his share of Rodriguez charges in a long criminal law career, and he says the instruction inevitably puts more pressure on jurors holding out against the majority for a unanimous vote.

That’s what he told Fishman on Thursday afternoon, as the judge, defense attorneys and prosecutors discussed the language Fishman would use in his instruction to the jury deciding whether Andy and Jason Huang were guilty of charges stemming from a fatal 2009 apartment fire in a Quincy house they owned.

When Fishman said he didn’t think the charge would single out a lone holdout juror, Reddington said, “It’s still coercive.”

Reddington was the lead attorney for the Huang brothers. An Iraqi immigrant and his two young sons died in the blaze in an illegal basement unit at the Huangs’ property.

Fishman turned to the “Rodriguez charge” after the Huang jury sent out a second question about the manslaughter charge, telling Fishman “one juror won’t budge.”

Juries have heard different versions of the “dynamite charge” since the 19th century. When Fishman called the Huang jury back to the courtroom, he told them, “It is desirable that the case be decided.” He asked holdout jurors to consider “whether a doubt in their own minds is a reasonable one,” if it made no impression on the majority. But he also asked the majority to reconsider the correctness of their judgment.

The jury filed out. They returned an hour later to deliver their verdict: Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Rodriguez had spoken.